Now Playing

1/12/2011 5:16PM

Snake Venom as Possible Cancer Treatment

Snakes like the midget-faded rattler use venom to kill their prey. But if University of Northern Colorado professor Steve Mackessy has his way, their venom could also kill cancer cells. Video courtesy of Fox's KDVR in Colorado.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

I ... Sts Sneaks like this makes it even Rattlers years then on to kill their place so if you see Professor Steve McAfee has his way ... their venom could also kill cancer cells preliminary data from Reynolds thirty or forty different mix from around the world ... and some of them very very potent says Forester X against ... breast cancer cells ... and against ... melanoma so ... those cancer cells stored in the lab in nitrogen ... meets with various Bennenbroek down to a single compound for more than one hundred protesting looks like a very ... interesting jigsaw puzzle to figure out ... which is the critical piece here that we can ... take out of hand ... he is to kill ... the author of stop them from throwing sample wants that accomplished a treat healthy cells with is that if things don't die ... they may be onto something ... and Comex mom felt focus on rehear famed snakes which are harmless to humans ... like his brown tree snake from Coulomb in as denim less likely to kill healthy sow so we can come up with a compound that would be a prototype for a development ... that would be tremendous they are the stake for both feel ... that they can also take a bite out of cancer growth and generally coincide ... then I would like to encourage people not to do that because these are animals that ... in the long run ... may in fact this is a lot CSC's ...